Claire Weiss, from Caribbean Labour Solidarity, reports from the launch event for two ground-breaking books by local authors on slavery
Speaking to a vibrant audience at a public meeting and book launch at Walthamstow’s William Morris Hall in March, Peter Ashan, local author of Freedom Walk, said: “Growing up in Waltham Forest with people of Asian, African and Afro-Caribbean heritage at school I realised that none of this history was reflected in our history books, and I have spent much of my life dedicated to uncovering local histories of East London’s Black communities.”
He emphasised that discovering and publicising unknown and forgotten histories was an educational key to tackling racism and the current rise of fascism around the world.
Luke Daniels, president of Caribbean Labour Solidarity, drew attention to the links between modern racism and Britain’s historical involvement in the enslavement of Africans, explaining that slavery did not end because the owning classes suddenly found their moral compass.
Rather the enslaved, by their continuous rebellions in the Americas, made it expensive to maintain the system, and this, combined with the anti-slavery movement in Britain, finally put paid to the system.
In making the case for reparations for slavery, he argued that the descendants of enslaved Africans still suffered from discrimination as a legacy of the enslavement of their ancestors and that an apology from the state, in addition to financial reparations, played an important role in overcoming racism.
Chaired by Geoff Nicholls, the meeting saw the launch of two books, Enslaved Worker Rebellions and Revolution in the Americas to 1804 by Mary Turner and Slave-trade Abolition and Leytonstone House: the Sansoms, the Buxtons and Black History edited by me and co-authored by Peter Ashan and Geoff Nicholls.
Mary’s work shows the multiple ways in which the enslaved resisted their enslavement across the Americas.
Meanwhile, as a local author, I tell the history of Leytonstone House, a locally-rare Grade 2- listed Georgian mansion, which was lived in by Philip Sansom a member of the 1787 Abolition Committee, and the forgotten story of a visit 80 years later by formerly enslaved Sarah Forbes Bonetta Davies to the Buxton family then living there.
Steve Cushion of CLS stated: “Caribbean Labour Solidarity is pleased to have had the opportunity to host a meeting in the borough that has defeated Tommy Robinson three times.
“The books launched at the meeting explain how the abolition of slavery was a result of the resistance of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean allied with a mass movement of solidarity in Britain.
Both writers stressed the importance of such Black and White unity in the struggle against racism and fascism today.”
Note: A previous version of this article which was published in the May print issue wrongly stated Claire Weiss was writing on behalf of the Leytonstone Historical Society; we apologise for this inaccuracy.
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